Tag Archives: Dylan Ennis

From our annual family trip to Mexico, I’m noting a slimmed Power Rankings. It’s no fault of the conference – hell, we’re just a week removed from Cal nearly winning in Charlottesville (will someone draw a play up for Ivan Rabb, please?). But the WiFi is spotty and the number of beach-centric activities is overwhelming (recommendation: invest in a Spike Ball set). I can’t dive deep.

And this is the last Power Rankings before conference play begins. To date, the Power Rankings have been dictated by a team’s most recent performance and other qualifiers. The equation looks something like this:

Makes sense, right?

Anyhow, I’m going to include, (parenthetically), where I really think a team will finish with some justification. The parentheticals are different than our preseason rankings because we can now judge about 13 games of action. For example: George King, Cuonzo Martin, Jordan McLaughlin, Chris Boucher, Thomas Welsh, etc. We know things.

West Coast Bias: Opposing coaches assess five of this year’s top teams – Aside from this being a great series by Jeff Eisenberg, Cal State LA’s Dierter Horton explains to us that UCLA’s most effective lineup looks just like theirs did last year. Which is effectively what we said here on Tuesday. The specific, however, that I didn’t delve in to, was Aaron Holiday’s ability to play the role of Norman Powell – a supersized guard with defensive prowess. Powell was a bulldog, and while I’m not much of one for “replacing” players, if the Bruins can manage to not miss a beat with the losses of Powell and Kevon Looney (Horton says Bolden is great at being a long, versatile PF) then they’re a year up on everyone else.

On Grantland and Sports Media – I really appreciate this article. It takes a very macro view of the entire happenings with Grantland. As I noted in Monday’s #34B the actions of the Mother Ship are consistent with their other activities. The Grantland product is highbrow in a lowbrow medium. It wasn’t making money and that’s a fact. Of course there are Skipper and Simmons’ proclaimed BSDs and now even stretches that Simmons’ podcast intro song (TuPac’s “Picture me Rollin'”) is a slight at his former employer. My big takeaway: the internet is the greatest mouthpiece an individual has for self-promotion. So please tell your friends about pachoops.com!

Are we about to see stability in an Oregon roster? As we preview college basketball teams, all we have to base prognostications upon are returning players. If you’ve paid any attention to Oregon, they’ve been the butt of every transfer-centric joke the past 3-4 years. When you gain the reputation as TransferU in modern college basketball, that’s saying something. Now returning minutes has rarely proven to mean much regarding future success. But it’s also rarely hurt anyone, either. So I repeat, are we about to see what a consistent Oregon roster is or can do?